Chapter One: Homer and the Athenian empire

I§13 I offer here an overview of what we know about the Athenian empire in the era of the democracy in the fifth century BCE. The basic facts can be found in the history of Thucydides, who highlights what gradually happened to Athens as a world power in the period extending from the end of the Persian War, with the establishment of the Delian League in 478 BCE, to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War in the year 431: what had started as a xummakhia ‘alliance’ of the city of Athens with various other cities evolved into an arkhē ‘rule’ by Athens over these cities (Thucydides 1.67.4, 1.75.1, etc.). [1] This ‘rule’ is the essence of the Athenian empire.

I§14 Of special interest is the arkhē ‘rule’ by Athens over the Ionian cities of Asia Minor and its outlying islands, as distinct from the non-Ionian cities drawn into the political sphere of the evolving empire. [2] The Ionian connections with Athens—as distinct from Dorian or Aeolian connections—were particularly compelling, since the Delian League was conceived as an alliance of Ionians who shared in a common Ionian kinship (Thucydides 1.95.1; Aristotle Constitution of the Athenians 23.4). [3] I add this apt formulation: “The reference to Ionian kinship [in Thucydides 1.95.1] is a brief allusion to a major element in fifth-century Athenian propaganda, the projection of Athens as mother-city of the whole empire, irrespective of the colo- {9|10} nial realities.” [4] To put it another way: “the concept of xungeneia [‘kinship’] was stretched until it had become almost a metaphor for a relationship of obedience and control.” [5]

I§15 The imperial sense of the noun arkhē ‘rule’ and of the corresponding verb arkhein ‘rule’ is actually attested in a context that is relevant to Homer. We find it in the dialogue of Plato called the Ion, named after the rhapsōidos ‘rhapsode’ called Ion who hails from the Ionian city of Ephesus and whose name actually means, appropriately enough, ‘the Ionian’ (Iōn). [6] In the dramatic time of the dialogue, this rhapsode is about to perform the poetry of Homer in competition with other rhapsodes, and the occasion is the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens (Ion 530b). We are about to see the rhapsode’s use of the verb arkhein ‘rule’ in a most revealing context. When Plato’s Socrates questions Ion’s expertise in the craft of a stratēgos ‘general’—a craft supposedly derived from Homer’s own expertise in matters of war—Ion pointedly retorts that his home city of Ephesus has no generals of its own, since it is ‘ruled’ (arkhetai, from arkhein) by Athens (Ion 541b-c). As we are about to see, the ties that bind the cities of Athens and Ephesus together correspond to the ties between a mother city—a metropolis—and a daughter city.

I§16 In responding to the point made by Ion, Socrates says that Athenians do in fact occasionally choose generals who are non-Athenians (Plato Ion 541d). [7] In the same breath Socrates adds that the people of Ephesus are not even really non-Athenians, since Ephesus, as an Ionian city, is after all a daughter city of Athens, which claims to be the metropolis (mētropolis) or ‘mother city’ of all Ionians (Ion 541c-d). As Socrates puts it, ‘After all, you Ephesians were Athenians in ancient times, weren’t you?’ (Ion 541d τί δέ; οὐκ ᾿Αθηναῖοι μέν ἐστε οἱ ᾿Εφέσιοι τὸ ἀρχαῖον;).

I§17 This idea, that Ephesus is a daughter city of Athens, is not an ad hoc invention by Socrates or by Plato. In the late fifth century, the historical period that corresponds to the dramatic date of Plato’s Ion, the idea that Athens was the metropolis or ‘mother city’ of all Ionian cities was generally accepted by the Greek-speaking world, whether they were allies or enemies of Athens. This idea, as mythologized in the Ion of Euripides (1575–1588) and as historicized in both Herodotus (1.147.2) {10|11} and Thucydides (1.2.6, with qualifications), was generally linked to the political reality of the Athenian empire. [8]

I§18 Of particular relevance to the status of Ion as a rhapsodic performer of Homeric poetry at the Panathenaia is the fact that Ionian cities were actually obliged to participate in the quadrennial celebration of the Great Panathenaia in Athens (as distinct from the annual celebration of the Lesser Panathenaia): for example, they had to send official delegates to attend this festival, and such attendance was considered “an extension of a general tradition linking colony to mother-city.” [9]

I§19 Here I return to the remark made by Plato’s Socrates when Ion the rhapsode points to the status of his native city of Ephesus as a tributary of Athens. As we have seen, Socrates follows up by remarking that Ephesus is after all a daughter city of Athens. In other words, Ion of Ephesus is a virtual Athenian, since Ion’s identity as an Ionian is not only dominated by the Athenians: it is actually determined by them.

I§20 What I have said so far about Plato’s Ion is taken from the twin book, Homer the Classic, where I argue that the picturing of Ion as a virtual Athenian is linked to his role as a professional rhapsode who performs Homer at the Panathenaia. And there are further arguments to be added here about something that Plato has elided in his Ion. It has to do with the craft of the rhapsode who performs at the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens. The fact is, this craft is politically as well as culturally important. More than that, this craft is all-important for Athens, since Ion specializes in performing Homeric poetry, which is the premier form of poetry as performed at the premier festival of the Athenians, the Panathenaia. Ion may seem unimportant as an Ionian, but he becomes all-important as a virtual Athenian in the act of performing Homer for a receptive audience of some twenty thousand celebrants attending the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens (Plato Ion 535d). [10] On the occasion of this festival, Athenians are notionally hosting the Ionians of the Delian League in an era marked by the rule of Athens over all Ionians. On this festive occasion, all Ionians are virtual Athenians, assembling in their mother city to {11|12} hear the epics of Homer. On this occasion, Ion the Ionian is re-enacting Homer himself by way of performing Homer.

I§21 So the identity of Ion as rhapsode was defined by the Panathenaic Homer, that is, by Homer as performed at the Panathenaia. Even the identity of Athens as an imperial power was defined by this Panathenaic Homer. The Athenian standard for performing Homer at the Panathenaia was a self-expression of the Athenian empire. The Panathenaic Homer was an imperial Homer.

I§22 What I am calling an Athenian standard was simultaneously an Ionian standard. In other words, the Panathenaic Homer was simultaneously an Ionian Homer. That is because the Athenian empire was at least notionally an Ionian empire. The Delian League, as an earlier form of the Athenian empire, was a clear and most forceful expression of Ionian identity. Moreover, the Ionian identity of the Athenian empire could be maintained and even reaffirmed most consistently by invoking the idea that Athens is the metropolis or ‘mother city’ of all Ionian cities. As we see in Plato’s Ion, this idea explains how a rhapsode like Ion could be pictured as performing for all Ionians by virtue of performing Homer at the festival of the Panathenaia.

I§23 With the passage of time, however, the Ionian identity of the Athenian empire became blurred as it outgrew its identification with the Delian League. Symptomatic is the fact that the Treasury of the Delian League was ultimately transferred from Delos to Athens, sometime around the middle of the fifth century BCE (Plutarch Aristeides 25.2–3). [11] With the blurring of the Ionian identity of the empire, we can expect a concomitant blurring of Homer’s own Ionian identity as the model for epic performance at the Panathenaia in the era of the democracy in Athens.

I§24 For a clearer picture of Homer’s Ionian identity, we need to shift our perspective farther back in time—back to the era of the tyrants in Athens. In this earlier era, the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens was not the only notional setting for the performance of Homer before a festive assembly of all Ionians. There was another festival that served as such a setting: the Delia, celebrated on the sacred island of Delos.

I§25 As we are about to see, Peisistratos as tyrant of Athens took the initiative of appropriating this festival of the Delia. Then, not many years thereafter, a similar initiative was taken by Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, in the context of his overall plan to build a maritime empire of Ionian islanders. Still later, the festival reverted to Athens under the rule of the sons of Peisistratos. [12] For Athens in the earlier as well {12|13} as later phases of what became the Athenian empire, the initiative of appropriating Delos and the Panionian festival of the Delia was linked to the initiative of appropriating Homer. This Homer was an Ionian Homer, who ultimately evolved into the Homer of the Athenian festival of the Panathenaia, the Panathenaic Homer.

I§26 This Ionian Homer is still clearly visible in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo—as quoted by Thucydides in a celebrated passage concerning the identity of Homer. I begin by quoting this passage in its entirety. As we are about to see, Thucydides actually makes two quotations from the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, the text of which turns out to be in some ways different from the text of the Hymn that survives in the medieval manuscript tradition. In my requotations of the two quotations made by Thucydides, I will add in each instance the text of the medieval transmission, noting in my footnotes the various textual differences between the Thucydidean quotation and the medieval transmission of the Hymn. As I indicate in these footnotes, most if not all of these textual differences can be shown to be authentic formulaic variations. Here, then, is the text in its entirety: [13]

Iⓣ1 Thucydides 3.104.2–6 [Beginning of a point of insertion: The preceding verses, as quoted by Thucydides, correspond to the following verses as transmitted by the medieval manuscript traditions of the Homeric Hymn (3) to Apollo, 146–150.] [End of point of insertion. Now, to resume what Thucydides is saying … ] [Beginning of another point of insertion: the preceding verses, as quoted by Thucydides, correspond to the following verses as transmitted by the medieval manuscript traditions of the Homeric Hymn (3) to Apollo, 165–172.] [End of point of insertion. Now, to resume what Thucydides is saying … ] [Beginning of a point of insertion: The preceding verses, as quoted by Thucydides, correspond to the following verses as transmitted by the medieval manuscript traditions of the Homeric Hymn (3) to Apollo, 146–150.]

[End of point of insertion. Now, to resume what Thucydides is saying … ] [Beginning of another point of insertion: the preceding verses, as quoted by Thucydides, correspond to the following verses as transmitted by the medieval manuscript traditions of the Homeric Hymn (3) to Apollo, 165–172.] [End of point of insertion. Now, to resume what Thucydides is saying … ]

I§27 The organizing (‘making’: ἐποίησαν)—or reorganizing—of the festival of the Delia by the Athenians, as described here by Thucydides, took place in the winter of 426 BCE. [29] Even from the understated account of Thucydides, it is clear that the occasion must have been a monumental spectacle: “The surprising space given to the Delos episode was perhaps the most [Thucydides] would allow himself by {17|18} way of recognition that it was a spectacular moment in the lives of all eye-witnesses.” [30] The magnificence of this occasion is directly pertinent to the politics and poetics of the Delian League in the earlier phase of the Peloponnesian War. [31]

I§28 The Athenocentrism inherent in the reorganization of the festival of the Delia at Delos is made explicit in the myth that connects Theseus, as culture hero of Athens, with the Delia: he is described as the founder of an agōn ‘competition’ there (Plutarch Theseus 21.3). [32] Though the Athenocentrism is left implicit in the account of Thucydides, the underlying idea is unmistakable: “Thucydides claims, as Athenian propaganda must have done at the time, that the Athenians were not creating something new but reviving an ancient Ionian festival, and the emphatic way in which he does this, and cites ‘Homer’ in support, suggests that he is rebutting the alternative view.” [33] The “alternative” view was of course represented by Sparta and its primarily Dorian allies in the Peloponnesian League, who were openly hostile to the Delian League, that is, to Athens and its primarily Ionian allies.

I§29 The Ionian orientation of the festival of the Delia, as opposed to the Dorian orientation of other major festivals, was a central motive in the Athenocentric reorganization of this festival by Athens in 426 BCE. Here is an apt formulation by a modern commentator on Thucydides: “The opportunity was taken to assert Athenian interest in Apollo, who at Delphi seemed now almost exclusively Peloponnesian and Dorian, and to start another international [= inter-polis] festival, the other four [= the festivals of the Olympia, Pythia, Isthmia, Némea] being, as it happened, in Peloponnesian hands.” [34] Another commentator adds: “The Delian activity of 426, in its imperial aspect, [can be explained] as evidence of an Athenian desire to reaffirm the ‘Ionianism’ of the Delian league in a period when Olympia, with its strongly Dorian associations, had recently been the venue for a meeting [= at Olympia] which had been markedly hostile to Athens.” [35]

I§30 The setting of the festival of the Delia as reorganized in 426 is parallel to the setting of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo itself. In terms of the Hymn, as quoted and in- {18|19} terpreted by Thucydides, the speaker in this setting is the speaker of the Hymn, Homer. And Thucydides recognizes the speaker of the Hymn as Homer himself (3.104.4, 5, 6). The ancient historian thinks he is quoting the words of Homer as he quotes from the Hymn the verses we recognize from the medieval manuscript transmission of Homer (Thucydides 3.104.4 / 5: Hymn to Apollo 146–150 / 165–172). This thinking of Thucydides is a most valuable piece of evidence about ancient ideas of Homer. It goes to the root, as we will see, of the conventional Athenian idea of Homer. [36]

I§31 In the verses of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo quoted by Thucydides (146–150), the speaker pictures Delos as a festive center where representatives of all Ionian cities converge in a grand assembly to validate their common origin by celebrating a Panionian festival. In commenting on the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, Thucydides says that this supposedly Homeric description of the festival indicates a prototype of the Delia, to be contrasted with the contemporary version that was organized (‘made’) by the Athenians to be celebrated on a quadrennial basis:

Iⓣ2 Thucydides 3.104.2

I§32 As we will see, the wording prōton ‘for the first time’ here refers to the first time that this festival was celebrated on a quadrennial basis, not to the first time that this festival was ever celebrated. The katharsis ‘purification’ of the island of Delos signals the Athenian inauguration of this festival at Delos in its quadrennial form. This particular inauguration, to repeat, can be dated to the winter of 426 BCE. But Thucydides says that there had been also an earlier Athenian katharsis of Delos, and that it took place at the initiative of the tyrant Peisistratos of Athens (3.104.1). This earlier katharsis signals an earlier Athenian inauguration of the same festival of the Delia at Delos. Besides Thucydides, Herodotus too (1.64.2) refers to this earlier katharsis ‘purification’, and he specifies that it was initiated by Peisistratos. [37]

I§33 By now Thucydides has given two distinct chronological landmarks for two distinct phases in the history of the Panionian festival known as the Delia. The earlier Athenian organization of that festival in the sixth century, in the era of the Peisi-{19|20} stratidai, is viewed as a precedent for its later Athenian organization in the fifth century, in the era of the democracy. The earlier Athenian organization, which is connected with the initiative of the tyrant Peisistratos, indicates that the city of Athens “had ‘ruled the waves’ in the sixth century as well as the fifth.” [38] In terms of what Thucydides is saying, there was already a prototype of the Athenian empire in the era of the Peisistratidai in the sixth century BCE, preceding the Athenian empire that we see in the era of the democracy in the fifth century BCE. I infer that there was also already a version of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo in that earlier era.

I§34 As we will see, the figure of Homer in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo is a construct that fits the era of the Athenian regime of the Peisistratidai—and of the non-Athenian regime of the tyrant Polycrates of Samos. In the case of Polycrates, we can even posit an occasion for his commissioning the performance of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo as we have it. The occasion is signaled in the passage I quoted earlier from Thucydides: it was the time when Polycrates had chained the island of Rheneia to the island of Delos. On that occasion, according to later sources, Polycrates organized an event that resembled a combination of two festivals, the Delia and the Pythia, for an ad hoc celebration on the island of Delos. [39] The Homeric Hymn to Apollo, with its combination of hymnic praise for both the Delian and the Pythian aspects of the god Apollo, fits the occasion. Such an occasion has been dated: it happened around 522 BCE. [40] Soon after the occasion, Polycrates was overthrown and killed by the Persians. Peisistratos had died earlier, in 528/7. On the occasion of the celebration organized by Polycrates, as we will see later, the performer of the Homeric Hymn to Apollo was a rhapsode by the name of Kynaithos.

I§35 As we consider what happened after the death of Polycrates, the focus of attention shifts from the festival of the Delia in Delos to the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens. For a starting point I choose the historical moment in time when control of the Delia was lost by Polycrates of Samos and regained by the Peisistratidai of {20|21} Athens. This would have happened, as we just saw, soon after the premier performance of what we know as the Homeric Hymn to Apollo in Delos. There is general agreement that this particular performance at Delos preceded the celebration at Athens of the quadrennial Panathenaia by Hipparkhos son of Peisistratos in the summer of 522. [41] So we are looking at a historical moment in time that took place during the later years of the rule of the Peisistratidai in Athens (as I noted earlier, Peisistratos had died already by 528/7). As I will now argue, the epic poetry performed at the festival of the quadrennial Panathenaia at this historical moment in the year 522 was a prototype of what eventually evolved into the Panathenaic Homer. By the time of Thucydides in the late fifth century, more than a hundred years later, this Panathenaic Homer had evolved into a form that resembles most closely what we still recognize today as the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey. And for Thucydides as an Athenian, the speaking ‘I’ who narrates the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey as performed at the festival of the Panathenaia is the same person as the speaking ‘I’ of Homer in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo.

I§36 Essential for my argument is a basic historical fact about the performance of Homeric poetry at the quadrennial Great Panathenaia within a span of time extending from the era of Hipparkhos son of Peisistratos in the late sixth century BCE all the way to the era of Lycurgus of Athens in the late fourth: throughout this span of time, the performers of Homeric poetry at the Panathenaia were rhapsodes who simultaneously competed as well as collaborated with each other in their Homeric performances. This fact is made evident by what is said in a set of three passages that I will now proceed to analyze.

I§37 The first of the three passages comes from a work attributed to Plato and named after Hipparkhos son of Peisistratos. The words I am quoting are spoken by Plato’s Socrates, who is just on the verge of naming Hipparkhos as an Athenian of the past who deserves the admiration of Athenians in the present:

Iⓣ3 “Plato” Hipparkhos 228b-c

I§38 This story amounts to an aetiology. (By aetiology, I mean a myth that motivates an institutional reality, especially a ritual. [43] ) As I have argued in earlier work, the institutional reality described here in the Platonic Hipparkhos, where rhapsodes compete with each other as they perform by relay and in sequence the epics of Homer at the festival of the Panathenaia, is a ritual in and of itself. [44] Moreover, the principle of equity that is built into this ritual event of rhapsodic competition corresponds to the need for equity in the ritual events of athletic competition. As Richard Martin observes, “The superb management of athletic games to assure equity could easily have been extended by the promoters of the Panathenaic games in this way.” [45] To emphasize the ritualistic nature of this regulation of rhapsodic competitions, I refer to it as the Panathenaic Regulation instead of using the less expressive term Panathenaic Rule. [46] And the very idea of a Panathenaic Regulation, where rhapsodes collaborate as well as compete in the process of performing, by relay, successive parts of integral compositions like the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, can be used to explain the unity of these epics as they evolved over time. [47] This evolution can best be understood in the light of Douglas Frame’s argument that the Homeric performance units stemming from this Panathenaic Regulation stem ultimately from earlier Homeric performance units that evolved at the festival of the Panionia as celebrated in the late eighth and early seventh centuries BCE at the Panionion of the Ionian Dodecapolis in Asia Minor: according to Frame’s explanation, the Panionian versions of the Iliad and the Odyssey were divided into six rhapsodic performance units each, adding up to twelve rhapsodic performance units representing each one of the twelve cities of the Ionian Dodecapolis; each one of these twelve rhapsodic performance units corresponds to four rhapsōidiai ‘rhapsodies’ or ‘books’ of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey as we know them (‘books’ 1–4, 5–8, 9–12, 13–16, 17–20, 21–24). [48]

I§39 Hipparkhos left his mark in defining the festival of the Panathenaia in Athens not only because he was the one who was credited with instituting the Panathenaic Regulation. He actually died at the Panathenaia. He was assassinated on the festive quadrennial occasion of the Great Panathenaia held in the year 514 BCE, and his spectacular death is vividly memorialized by both Thucydides (1.20.2, 6.54–59) and Herodotus (5.55–61). Despite the assassination, however, the older brother of Hipparkhos, Hippias, maintained his family’s political control of Athens. In the year {22|23} 510, Hippias was finally overthrown, and this date marks the end of the turannis ‘tyranny’ of the Peisistratidai, which then gave way to the dēmokratia ‘democracy’ initiated in 508 by Kleisthenes, head of the rival lineage of the Alkmaionidai.

I§40 The new regime of the Athenian democracy highlighted not Hipparkhos but the earlier figure of Solon as the culture hero of the Panathenaic Regulation. In the second of the three passages I am currently examining, the achievement of Solon is described as follows:

Iⓣ4 Dieuchidas of Megara FGH 485 F 6 via Diogenes Laertius 1.57

I§41 As we see from this second passage, the regime of the Athenian democracy gave credit to Solon and not to the Peisistratidai for the establishment of the Panathenaic Regulation, since Solon was now imagined as the culture hero of a primal democracy that had preceded the turannis ‘tyranny’ of the Peisistratidai in Athens. [49] The democratic aetiology of the new regime displaced the predemocratic aetiology of the old regime. From the standpoint of the old regime, as we saw in the first passage, the originator of the Panathenaic Regulation was Hipparkhos of the Peisistratidai, not the earlier figure of Solon.

I§42 The predemocratic version of the aetiology of the Panathenaic Regulation, featuring Hipparkhos, makes more sense than the democratic version featuring Solon. As we are about to see, the predemocratic version is consistent with a whole nexus of additional information concerning the early phases of the Panathenaia. This is not to say, however, that Hipparkhos himself should be credited with instituting rhapsodic contests at the Panathenaia. [50] It is only to say that he instituted a reform of these rhapsodic contests by introducing the Panathenaic Regulation.

I§43 I now turn to a third passage about the Panathenaic Regulation. The speaker in this passage avoids any direct attribution of the Panathenaic Regulation to Solon, despite the fact that he speaks in terms that presuppose the prevailing ideologies of the Athenian democracy; instead, he attributes the Regulation to the initiative of unnamed ancestors of the Athenians of his day. [51] Here is the passage, taken from a speech delivered by the Athenian statesman Lycurgus in 330 BCE: [52] {23|24}

Iⓣ5 Lycurgus Against Leokrates 102

I§44 This third passage makes it explicit that the epē ‘verses’ (epos plural) performed at the Panathenaia belonged to Homer only, to the exclusion of other poets. As we are about to see, the poets to be excluded were other authors, as it were, of epic. These authors, from the standpoint of the Athenian democracy in the fourth century BCE, were understood to be the poets of the epic Cycle and, secondarily, the poets Hesiod and Orpheus. I will have more to say about these poets at a later point in my argumentation; for now, however, I concentrate on the simple fact that they are seen as poets of epic, not of other forms of poetry.

I§45 The epē ‘verses’ (= epos plural) to which the Athenian orator is referring in this third passage are the dactylic hexameters performed by competing rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’, not the lyric meters performed by competing kitharōidoi ‘citharodes’ and aulōidoi ‘aulodes’. At the Panathenaia, there were separate competitions of rhapsōidoi ‘rhapsodes’, of kitharōidoi ‘citharodes’ (= kithara-singers), of aulōidoi ‘aulodes’ (= aulos-singers), of kitharistai ‘citharists’ (= kithara-players), and of aulētai ‘auletes’ (aulos-players), as we learn from an Athenian inscription dated at around 380 BCE (IG II² 2311) that records Panathenaic prizes. [60] We learn about these categories of competition also from Plato’s Laws (6.764d-e), where we read of rhapsodes, citharodes, and auletes – and where the wording makes it clear that the point of reference is the Panathenaia. [61] I mention these other categories of competing performers because the festival of the Panathenaia featured citharodic and aulodic competitions in lyric as well as rhapsodic competitions in epic. [62] In the passage I have just quoted from Lycurgus, the use of the word rhapsōideîn ‘rhapsodically perform’ makes it clear that the poets who are being excluded from the Panathenaia are not the lyric poets, whose compositions are performed by citharodes and aulodes. In other words, Lycurgus is referring here not to lyric poets like Anacreon and Simonides. Rather, he is referring to epic poets other than the Homer he knows. It is these other epic poets who are being excluded from the Panathenaia. Lycurgus here is referring exclusively to rhapsodic competitions in epic, not to citharodic or aulodic competitions in lyric. When Lycurgus refers to ‘Homer’ in this passage, he means the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey. [63]

I§46 My argument, based on the actual wording of Lycurgus in Against Leokrates (102), is that the Iliad and Odyssey were reperformed as a continuous narration at the quadrennial festival of the Great Panathenaia. This argument is supported by the testimony of Dionysius of Argos (FGH 308 F 2): from the surviving reportage {25|26} about what Dionysius said, we can see that he must have focused on the continuity that was evident in these two epics. [64] It remains to be seen, however, whether such continuous narration was only notional in any given historical phase of the Great Panathenaia. [65]

I§47 A moment ago, I used the names of Anacreon and Simonides as examples of poets whose lyric compositions could be performed competitively at the Panathenaia. I mentioned their names for a specific reason. In the first of the three passages I quoted about the Panathenaic Regulation, we saw an association of Hipparkhos with Homer at the Panathenaia. Here I quote that passage again, but this time I extend the quotation to include what the speaker says about a parallel association of the same Hipparkhos with these two lyric poets, Anacreon and Simonides:

Iⓣ6 “Plato” Hipparkhos 228b-c

I§48 I highlight the two instances of the word sophia ‘expertise’ in this extended passage. The use of this word here is strikingly archaic: it expresses the idea that Hipparkhos demonstrates his expertise in poetry by virtue of sponsoring poets like Homer, Anacreon, and Simonides (the latter is coupled with Anacreon: Hipparkhos 228c), who are described as the ultimate standards for measuring expertise in poetry. [66] In the overall logic of the narrative, Hipparkhos makes this kind of gesture because he wants to demonstrate to the citizens of Athens that he is not ‘stinting with his sophia’ (σοφίας φθονεῖν 228c), since he provides them with the poetry and {26|27} songmaking of Homer, Anacreon, and Simonides; by implication, his sophia ‘expertise’ is the key to the performances of these three poets in Athens. [67]

I§49 In the case of Homeric poetry, as we see from the larger context of this extended passage taken from the Platonic Hipparkhos, the tyrant is being credited not only with the regulation of Homeric performances at the Panathenaia but also with the more basic initiative of actually introducing the epic performances of Homer at this festival. Moreover, the wording makes it clear that this initiative is thought to be a parallel to the tyrant’s initiative of introducing the performances of lyric compositions by contemporary poets like Anacreon and Simonides, ostensibly at the same festival. The use of the word komizein (228b), in expressing the idea that Hipparkhos ‘brought over’ to Athens the epē ‘verses’ (= epos plural) of Homer, is parallel to the use of the same word komizein (228c) in expressing the idea that Hipparkhos also ‘brought over’ to Athens the poet Anacreon—on a state ship, from the island of Samos. [68]

I§50 What is implied by the second of these two initiatives of Hipparkhos is that the tyrant undertook a veritable rescue operation in transporting to Athens the lyric poet Anacreon from Samos. In Samos, Anacreon had been a court poet of the Panionian maritime empire of Polycrates of Samos. To make this point, I turn to the story told by Herodotus about the final days of Polycrates, culminating in the gruesome execution of the tyrant by agents of the Persian empire (3.125.2–3). Right before the bitter end, we get a glimpse of happier times: Polycrates is pictured as reclining on a sympotic couch and enjoying the company of that ultimate luminary of Ionian lyric poetry, Anacreon of Teos (3.121.1). [69] My point is, the Ionian lyric tradition represented by Anacreon had to be rescued from the Persians once the old Panionian maritime empire of Polycrates of Samos had collapsed, soon to be replaced by the new Panionianism of the Peisistratidai of Athens. Once the rescue operation had succeeded, it could now be Hipparkhos, not Polycrates, who got to enjoy the sympotic company of lyric celebrities like Anacreon.

I§51 In the logic of this narrative, Hipparkhos did something far more than simply invite lyric poets for ad hoc occasions of performance at, say, symposia: rather, he institutionalized their performances. Once his initiative succeeded, the Ionian lyric compositions of poets like Anacreon of Teos could be performed in citharodic or aulodic competitions at the Panathenaia in Athens, along with the Dorian lyric compositions of poets like Simonides of Keos. [70] {27|28}

I§52 We have just seen one of the two Panathenaic initiatives of Hipparkhos as narrated in the Platonic Hipparkhos. Now I turn to the other initiative. The narrative implies that Hipparkhos the tyrant undertook another rescue operation by virtue of transporting to Athens the epic poetry of Homer. In this case, as we are about to see, it is implied that Hipparkhos transported not the poet Homer but Homer’s notional descendants, called the Homēridai; further, by contrast with the case of Anacreon, Hipparkhos brought the Homēridai over to Athens not from the island of Samos but from the island of Chios.

I§53 At a later point in my argumentation, I will analyze the extant information we have about the Homēridai of Chios. As we will see, these Homēridai are the topic of a highly compressed but illuminating discussion in the scholia for Pindar’s Nemean 2. Moreover, they are well known to classical authors, who speak about them in passing as a matter of common knowledge. Two important examples, as we will also see, are the casual references made by Isocrates (Helen 65) and by Plato (Ion 530d, Republic 10.599e).

I§54 For the moment, I will leave the topic of the Homēridai of Chios, but not before I offer an outline of what I hope to reconstruct in the course of my upcoming analysis: